Alcorn's Administration
James L. Alcorn was inaugurated
March 10, 1870. The State officers elected with him were, R. C. Powers,
lieutenant-governor; James Lynch, secretary of State; Henry Musgrove, auditor;
W. H. Vasser, treasurer; Joshua A. Morris, attorney-general; and to the new
office of superintendent of education, Henry R. Pease. Powers, Musgrove and
Pease were former officers in the Union army, who had settled in the State since
the war; Vasser and Morris were old Mississippians; Lynch was a black from the
North. When the legislature met, March 8, the lieutenant-governor addressed the
senate, saying, "Our political status, which has been so long a source of
anxiety and doubt, is at last fixed, by the re-admission of the State into the
fold of the Union, and the restoration of civil law." In his inaugural address,
two days later, Governor Alcorn referred to his long association with
Mississippi, and his sharing of the common lot of suffering and sorrow and
humiliation. "A son of American liberty, whose heart is glowing with blood of
1776, I may, therefore, be pardoned for feeling; struggling for first utterance,
on this occasion, the profound emotion with which I receive from the hand of the
Conqueror, the crown of civic law, that, in a blending of pain and pleasure, I
bind this blessed hour upon the queenly brow of Mississippi."
The governor in his inaugural seeks to strengthen his influence with the new
political elements by condemning the past. The ideas mainly advanced follow: The
patriarchal groupings of the former days confined the workings of political
organization mainly to the heads of what were called "families." But after the
change, the State government had to treat with each individual of that man's
"family," twenty or five hundred. The system overthrown was one of duties
limited, in a great degree, to 25,000 slaveholders, while the new system that
day begun, would extend the full play of its powers to an additional population
of 40,000 adult whites and 80,000 people of color, adopting the voting basis.
The poor were not formerly given the same consideration as the rich. The poor
white children of the State, permitted in the past to grow up like wild flowers,
were now to be educated in public schools, also the children of the colored
race. There should be a return for the burden of taxation of a full equivalent
to every taxpayer, whereas there had been formerly but a partial return to
two-thirds of the whites. He promised to use "the most conscientious care in his
appointments to office." "Our taxation will be, after the employment of the most
zealous economy, extraordinarily large. Its application will, however, tend not
to impoverish us, but to enrich us; for it will be directed to develop the
productive powers of the State. . . . The world has adopted the industrial
college and the public school, in concession of the principle that the highest
production of wealth follows the combination of muscle and intelligence." His
attitude regarding the negroes was that "they must be protected in all their
rights of persons and property, and, being placed not only in theory but in fact
on exactly the same footing in the courts as all other citizens, shall be left
free to pursue the race of life under a code which shall throw open all the
rewards of success, intellectual or industrial, to be won regardless of the
previous condition of the winner. The colored people are an infant nation,
struggling to maintain themselves in the presence of intelligences more advanced
than their own. And the first duty of a wise and paternal government is to
protect the weak against the strong. . . . The most profound anxiety with which
I enter my office as governor of the State is that of making the colored man the
equal, before the law, of any other man - the equal, not in dead letter, but in
living fact. . . . The poor and the weak of the whites are in need of our
fostering help. In the neglect of their education, and the defenselessness of
their industry, they must command the tender solicitude of the political system
which is planted this day in Mississippi. . . . Our legislation in the interests
of the poorer classes will be confronted, in traditions of centuries, by a great
force of virtual nullification. . . . Wealth, intelligence, social position,
have been always, as I trust they ever shall be, great powers in the State.
During the present moment of passion, these are arrayed in large masses against
the spirit of our forthcoming laws. . . . Our judges must be men of a standing
that society cannot presume to ignore. . . . The duty which the incoming
authority of this State owes to the poor, is, in every instance, a duty also to
the rich. . . . The State ought not to impose any incumbrances whatever that may
prove in the least injurious to the productive energy of labor. Any flagging in
the earnest application of that power of production involves a direct loss of
the income of the wealthy. . . . The system of free labor which we have crowned
with political supremacy today, demands, that our taxation shall be made to bear
with the least possible burden on industry." The surplus income which had
formerly been absorbed in the purchase of labor would hereafter be invested in
enterprises. "The restless activity which the public mind begins to develop in
that direction, is a cause of apprehension, and suggests that in that direction
the wisest and severest scrutiny be applied. ... In fact a mania of speculation
threatens us. . . . The new administration . . . will set its face against
additions to the public debt." When the State and the counties and cities had
reached the point where they could meet their ordinary expenses with cash, and
not with paper at 20 to 30 per cent discount, it would be time to borrow money.
Throughout the session of the legislature, which was occupied with framing new
systems of administration under the new constitution, and continued in session
until July 21, 1870, the governor frequently discussed, in special messages, and
with great freedom of expression, the problems of the time.
Assuming good intentions, the great fault of the era thus begun was the attempt
to introduce all at once, systems of education, a development of colleges and
charitable institutions, and an elaboration of government that the State was
incapable financially of assuming. The people could not afford to build so many
school houses, for instance, and besides, in the nature of things the school
officers elected or appointed from the revolutionary party in power were
peculiarly susceptible to the "graft" of book and supply agents. The legislature
was equally susceptible to the schemes of railroad financiers. A gross blunder
was the appointment, at first, of county officers by the governor. The sheriffs,
constables, magistrates, county treasurers, assessors, were appointed by the
governor for each county. The board of supervisors, who levied the taxes, were
appointed by the governor. The supervisors appointed the county directors of
schools. The superintendents of schools were appointed by the State board of
education. "
Sometimes men who have been sent into a county with their commissions in their
pockets were never in the county before; knew nothing about the people, and
possibly were not known to anybody residing there. The people had a contempt for
such men; it was natural; I had a great contempt for them myself."
(Attorney-General Morris, before Cong. Comm.)
The legislature of 1870 was persuaded to pass a preposterous general railroad
bill, which would turn the State bound hand and foot into the power of
corporations. Governor Alcorn vetoed the bill, saying, "This is a government of
the people. . . . These great aggregations of wealth are, I warn you, aggressive
adversaries to the rights of the people."
In view of the fact that a million dollars was leaving the State annually in
payment of insurance premiums, though the warrants of the State auditor were
selling at a considerable discount, he recommended that the companies be
required to make deposits with the State treasury as security, and buy State
warrants for that purpose. Such deposits were required, and made to the amount
of over $200,000.
The balance in the State treasury, January, 1, 1870, was $546 and $795,000 in
worthless paper.
The receipts in 1870 were $436,000; the disbursements, $1,061,-294. To provide
for the deficit temporary use was made of the common school fund, $210,610;
engraved notes of small denomination, known as certificates of indebtedness,
were issued to the amount of $418,000. One of the main items of receipts was the
cotton tax, $140,000. The main items of expenditure were, for legislature of
1870, $241,191. This and the printing bill for $52,000 were the most startling
increases in expenditure, as compared with former years. The expenditures for
courts was $220,399, but this was not a serious increase over 1861, considering
that the new system relieved the counties of the expense of probate courts, and
provided more terms of circuit court. Another large expenditure, was $120,000
for the repair of the public buildings, and for the State hospital, normal
school, and revised code. The constitutional convention also required $41,494
out of the general revenues. Governor Alcorn figured that after the necessary
extraordinary expenses were deducted, in each case, a comparison with 1861 did
not warrant alarm.
One of the greatest problems of the administration was the establishment of an
equable system of taxation. Theretofore the system had been for the protection
and promotion of the planters, and the effort to equalize had a tendency to go
to the other extreme. Governor Alcorn reported, in 1871 that political
influences naturally colored the assessments and the work of the several boards
of equalization. In some counties lands were valued too low and in others too
high, according to the political predominance.
There was great extravagance in the building of new school houses, and in
salaries of teachers, as well as in introducing French and music into the
curriculum. In Issaquena county the county board had levied general taxes to the
amount of nine times the State tax. "Contracts for courthouses, bridges, roads,
are being let out in all parts of the State to an extent that threatens the
people with grievous burdens. This state of things will go on, if not checked,
to the full extent of a power that knows no limit within that of the avarice of
men by whom it is wielded. . . . Washington is, I fear, not the only county in
which the assessment may be supposed to be tainted by improper purposes.
Issaquena is, I have every reason to suspect, not the only county in which the
local taxation is fixed at a rate amounting to oppression." (Journal Appendix,
1871, 422.)
Notwithstanding the great increase of expenditures, the expedient of
certificates of indebtedness, for use as money, enabled the governor to say,
"Thus does the close of the first year of the operation of the new order of
things witness an advance of the State credit from 60 cents on the dollar to a
value which is virtually par." Many railroad companies, navigation companies and
various enterprises were incorporated by the legislatures of 1870 and 1871. To
ensure the completion of the New Orleans road to Aberdeen, as required in the
original charter, the State surrendered, by act of 1871, what remained of the
railroad stock (in four companies) it had bought with the Chickasaw school fund.
Most of the stock had been lost in 1863-64 by allowing the companies to redeem
it with Confederate money.
As required by the constitution the legislature (q. v.) met in regular session
January 3, 1871.
After delivering his message, Governor Alcorn was notified, officially, of his
election in January of the previous year, to the United States senate for the
term beginning March 4, 1871. By accepting this election in the middle of his
four years term as governor, he disappointed many of his supporters. In the
senate he suffered the enmity of General Ames, who wrote to a colored member of
the legislature March 30, 1871, that the governor had not protected the
freedmen, but had allowed them to be killed by "tens and hundreds," and had
gained "power and favor from the Democracy at the price of blood and that the
blood of his friends." This accusation indicates the violence of faction within
the party that was then in control, which made Alcorn's presence as governor
doubly desirable.
His recommendations of conservative expenditures were not effective. His
administration found on the books as old State indebtedness, the Chickasaw
school fund and interest, $966,439. This, with outstanding warrants, made the
State indebtedness, January 1, 1870, $1,178,175. But the debt was increased in
the same items, in 1871, to $1,796,230; and in 1872, to $2,377,342, mainly by
the appropriation of the common school fund and the issue of bonds and
certificate currency. Treasurer Vasser said these figures indicated either
"profligacy in the management of the finances," or inadequate revenues. The
total disbursements of the treasury in 1871 were $1,326,161. The showing of
receipts was $1,338,150, but $400,000 of this was school funds and certificates.
The State disbursements included $90,000 for the two universities, and smaller
amounts for two State normal schools and two State hospitals, $111,000 to repair
and maintain the Lunatic asylum, $163,000 for the educational funds, and $37,000
for the code. The judiciary expense was $377,000.
According to Governor Powers, (January, 1872), the increase of floating debt,
with warrants selling at 65 to 85 cents on the dollar, " presents a condition of
affairs highly prejudicial to the present administration of the State finances.
With only a nominal debt to contend against, with ample power and resources to
meet every obligation at maturity, it is a profligate administration that
permits the State to suffer an average discount of 35 per cent on every dollar
expended. . . . The present treasurer has not, during his term of office, had at
his disposal money enough to pay his own salary, much less to pay the hundreds
of sight drafts that are monthly drawn upon the treasury. The office of State
treasurer has become substantially an4 appendage to that of the auditor, and it
may be abolished without any public inconvenience if the present management is
to be continued. . . . It is an absurd attempt to conduct the finances of the
State in utter disregard of commercial usage or justice, and will lead, if
persisted in, to ultimate bankruptcy." The same system ruled in the counties.
"Irresponsible boards of police, now supervisors, have been invested with
legislative powers, and been suffered, under shadow of law, to flood their
respective counties with warrants upon the treasury until they have depreciated
in value, in instances which have come under my own observation, to 25 cents on
the dollar. When it is remembered that the counties are supposed to redeem
finally in currency every dollar drawn upon the treasury, it is no wonder that
the people groan under a burden of taxation which threatens to drive them into
bankruptcy. A few brokers and speculators who are able to buy up and hold the
depreciated paper in the counties, reap, it is true, a rich harvest, but it is
spoils wrung from the hard earnings of the laboring masses; and the reckless use
of county credit by the local boards, which enables heartless speculators to
accumulate princely fortunes, sells at public outcry the tools of the mechanic
and carries distress into the cabins of the poor."
The Ku Klux operations continued into the administration of Governor Alcorn. The
Meridian riot, March 6, 1871, (q. v.) was the subject of legislative
investigation. Two months later, May 12th, there was a raid of armed men in
Pontotoc. (See Ku Klux.) But in January, 1872, Governor Powers wrote, "The armed
organizations of masked marauders which twelve months ago threatened to override
law and paralyze industry in a few of the eastern counties, through the combined
efforts of the few good citizens of those sections, aided by the officers of the
general and State governments, have been entirely suppressed, and the people are
now free to devote their entire attention and energies to bettering their
material condition."
It was the evident intention of the framers of the constitution of 1869 that the
general elections should be biennial, and Federal and State officers should be
elected at the same time. But the legislature began the elections in 1871, and
as the Federal laws required the election of congressmen in even years, the
State had annual elections, heavily increasing the burdensome expenses of
government. A short time before the convening of congress, Governor Alcorn
resigned, November 30, 1871, to take his seat in the senate.
He found that all his theories of good government based on negro suffrage were
delusions, and failing in his efforts to control the ignorant hoard of his
supporters, he abandoned the State House for the Senate. Public affairs were
turned over to ignorant negroes, and dishonest carpet-baggers and scalawags.
Back to: Mississippi History
Source: Encyclopedia of Mississippi History, by Dunbar Rowland.
